Democratic Accountability of Central Banks

Dr Fabian Amtenbrink is a Lecturer in European and Economic Law,and an associate of the CRBS at the University of Groningen.

• Part 1 Introduction: context; objective; approach; structure. Part 2 Democratic accountability and central bank independence and theoretical background: central bank independence - the evaluation of central bank independence, conclusions; the democratic accountability of central banks - the case for democratic accountability, defining democratic accountability for central banks, conclusions; on the relationship between central bank independence and democratic accountability. Part 3 The central banks - an overview: Bank of England - historic development, institutional structure, tasks; Banque de France - historic development, institutional structure, tasks; Deutsche Bundesbank - historic development, institutional structure, tasks; De Nederlandsche Bank NV - historic development, institutional structure, tasks; the European system of central banks and the European Central Bank: historic development, institutional structure, tasks; the Reserve Bank of New Zealand - historic development, institutional structure, tasks; Federal Reserve system - historic development, institutional structure, tasks. Part 4 Evaluating the democratic accountability of central banks: legal bias - constitutional recognition of central banks, act of parliament, a constitutional recognition of member states' central banks in ESCB?; monetary objectives - central banks with an indistinct monetary objective; central banks with a primary monetary objective, central banks with a statutory quantified monetary objective; the relationship with the executive branch of government - central bank statutes with an explicit reference to independence, central bank statues without an explicit reference to independence; appointment and dismissal procedures - appointment and reappointment, dismissal; override-mechanism - central bank systems precluding an override mechanism, the limited override mechanism of the Bundesbank, central bank systems incorporating a full override mechanism; relationship with parliament - institutionalised relationship between the central bank and parliament, central banks without an institutionalised relationship with parliament; transparency - transparency in the decision-making procedures of the central banks, transparency through publicity; budgetary accountability - budgetary independence, limited budgetary independence. Part 5 Democratic accountability - quo vadis?: conditions for democratic accountability - introducing a yardstick, creating an arena; instruments of democratic accountability - threat of change - the constraining effect of the legal basis, collegiate principle v. personal responsibility - the (re-) appointment and dismissal procedures, the stick behind the back - the override mechanism, checking where the money goes -budgetary accountability; the status quo and the future of the democratic accountability of the ECB - the subsidiary role of democratic accountability, a new approach for a democratically accountable ECB (Part Contents).

An invaluable contribution to fill a gap existing in this branch of EC Law. Europarttslig Tidskrift July 2001 ... exceptionally interesting work Robin Mackenzie, University of Kent European Law Review February 2003